We spent several weeks in Banderas Bay – we found great surf in Punta Mita, explored the town of La Cruz, and checked out a marina near Puerto Vallarta as a potential place to keep the boat for hurricane season. But there’s more to explore, and Madrone was ready to head further south.
Before sailing around Cabo Corrientes we needed to service one of our winches which stopped making its ‘happy’ winch sound while in use. A little cleaning and lubricating was all that was needed to get it back to clicking happily
The southern tip of Banderas Bay is called Cabo Corrientes, which translates to Cape of Currents. Since this cape extends out to sea, the prevailing southbound current tends to swirl in a giant backeddy around the cape. A change in direction like this tends to lead to turbulence in the water, which in turn leads to a lot of marine life feeding in the active waters.
Lovely sailing!
We were lucky enough to experience our fair share of the marine life. Several pods of humpback whales spouted and breached as we sailed by, with one whale close enough that we considered changing course to avoid it.
A few of the pantropical spotted dolphins enjoying Madrone’s bow wake
Soon after, Madrone was joined by a gigantic group of pantropical spotted dolphins – there must have been 50-100 dolphins taking turns swimming in our bow wake. After about 15 minutes they all of a sudden disappeared, only to be immediately replaced by a pod of common bottlenose dolphins.
The presence of dolphins usually means that the fishing will be good, so Angie dropped in her handline behind the boat. After about 15 minutes of trolling, she was rewarded with a beautiful mahi.
In addition to changing the direction of the current, the cape also causes a compression zone, accelerating the wind in the local area. This turned the 10-15 knot breeze into 20-25 knots, and Madrone zipped south in search of new adventures.
What a gorgeous fish!
